


Nature

by Glassdyr



Category: Original Work
Genre: Freeform, Other, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 11:57:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17059352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glassdyr/pseuds/Glassdyr
Summary: Verses on change.





	1. Land, Sea, and Sky

**Author's Note:**

> These are old poems I wrote in 2017 and revised this year. 2017 was a very difficult year for many, many reasons. These poems don't explain or narrate the events of 2017, but they (hopefully) show the state of mind I was in, what I was feeling. The full title is "A Nature God That Shook the Earth".
> 
> I've since evolved from this subject matter and style, but these poems were very important to me and still are.

Tearing off the trail

and onto this peninsula,

my feet slow, and stop.

The lake sprawls wide

to the arching horizon,

breathing in the watery sky

and exhaling wisps of cirrus.

 

The waves, shy, duck away and

back into their placid, tacit mother

but return to me on the shore, curious,

like sparrows edging up to a bird feeder.

Their foamy fingers are small, so gentle. A

rhythm, slowed and calm, restarts within me.

 

Sunset roams his eyes over the edge of the world

as Apollo rocks in the cradle of his twisting antlers.

The chipped-ivory sand dives under the water’s glass and

breaches at the horizon, a haze of gilded fog on dark navy sky.

 

I look back and those bloodhounds are no longer haunting me, the

trail as serene as… _this_ , I say, spreading my hands as wide as the horizon.

The smell of pine shimmers and brushes tiny humming wings against my arms.

 

I breathe in the trees and press my toes into the sand. Washes of cool wind seep into

my skin. I melt into the worlds around me, Nature running her hands through my hair.

 

Three realms collide at a point far away -- the horizon -- and _there_ is where I, weary traveller, shall go.


	2. Evolution

The ocean stretches, boundless as space, a treadmill of Pacific.

     This is where the dolphin belongs.

Made for each other; soft singing currents kiss smooth streamlined skin --

     joy and water in equal amounts.

 

The surface flashes and shudders, kicked by wind

     as needle-toothed monsters lurk in the deep;

and yet the dolphin swims through it, unbothered.

     The dolphin is home.

 

So enthralled in cetacean joy

     With warm waters and whispering waves,

abyssal accurseds and slashing spray,

     That it throws itself into the air,

 

\---

 

kissing the sun,

kissing the clouds,

kissing the beach-sand;

 

and it learns what warmth is,

what it is to leave ‘normal’ behind and below.

It’s peaceful, and

 

the blanket of attentive sunlight

and the pillow of white sand; virgin, untouched

and the distant roar of waves

 

rock the dolphin to sleep

immeasurably happy

that it could choose its own fate.


	3. Musk

Look at them! Those animals,

ferrets, insomniacs,

     tossing and turning in the bed of the leaves.

 

Unthinking, pure feeling,

flash of teeth, glare of tongue;

     giggle, whine, growl.

 

Look! He got what he wanted!

He slips between the weeds, satisfied:

     saliva slick as river rock around his smile.

 

But that one right there

won’t move, face buried in the dead leaves.

     What’s wrong with it?

 

It should be happy. That looked fun.

That’s what ferrets _do_.

     It stumbles up, shaking, and slips into the weeds, too.


	4. River Ghost

I dipped my toes in the water

as you stood behind me,

                facing only the river; the constant, steady river.

 

I felt the heat of your hand on my shoulder

                fade, spectral, as I tumbled into the water

                                believing in the warmth of the constant, steady river.

 

I was wrong.

                I floated on the syrup of spring,

                                blissfully blind

 

until the season changed

                and the flow turned to ice, the breeze to dead leaves

                                and ice as cold as fish scales cradled me.

 

My weak hands scrabble on the bank

                but the current draws me in again, promising, teasing shreds of warmth

                                as I watch your silhouette fade into fog. “Too late! too late,”

 

I hear, waves lapping at my ears

                and, at last, I am touched and surrounded

                                but I see you standing on the river-bank

 

even when I’m looking at the river-bed

                or at the river-sky

                                and I feel the shadow, the ghost of your heat

 

on my shoulder

                as river-water washes over your fading handprint

                                but I should be satisfied. “Too late! too late,”

 

I whisper as I give myself up to the river

                because I cannot leave

                                and I no longer have a reason to.


	5. Reincarnation

I.

I am human.

Two watery hands, two strong legs;

                pale, pale skin -- dark, dark hair.

 

I stand at the Pacific’s edge,

the waves throwing themselves at my feet.

                An ancient song rings

 

in the shimmering tilt of clouded kimono silk,

made of the fog that blurs the edges of God,

                as I dance in the seaspray.

 

This world is mine and mine alone.

 

Elsewhere, I’m calling for you again,

the heat of spirits -- ghosts --

                on the back of my tongue.

 

We have died but I long for us to rise again,

undead phoenix, hopelessly hopeful,

                never-ending cycle.

 

I drown somewhere in Osaka Bay;

I drown in fire and water

                but I am hollow, empty: the well never filled.

 

* * *

 

 

II.

I am forest God, enveloped in ivy, coated in copper bark.

                Velvet fingers reach from my skull and splay in the sun,

                                hardening, a keratin crown: pointed, proud, imperial

                and the understory bows at my hooves

making way for me and my power.

 

I hold my head high

                and brush aside the briar

                                hearing my wind-messengers, susurrations in leaves

                exalting me, emblazoned with my coat-of-arms,

until the mistral falls mute, all eyes on an intruder.

 

Wayward wolf, pouring himself through willows,

                vagabond paws sliding between vines (ghostlike!); proud

                                and uncaring! His treasonous hide trespasses in _my_ cathedral,

                turning _my_ wind-gusts and grasping, submitting ivies

towards _his_ quiet footsteps; unassuming, secretive.

                               

Then our gazes lock! I am breathless

                with the affluence and authority in his air,

                                how he commands my forest with a look, a blink;

                how he usurped my throne without a brag,

a prince taking up his dying father’s crown.

                               

Gnarled vines of muscle

                lurk under silver-plated fur, painting

                                (but not threatening!) an image of my blood on the leaves,

                and suddenly my antlers feel blunted,

my legs fawning and weak.

 

The spirit fades away, leaving me gasping and shaking in the airless void,

                mortified, somehow dethroned with an antlered crown and verdant riches

                                and _what if!_ I am not the God that I think I am? It thunderclaps through me, electric --

                but I slam my hooves and shake my head, banishing his spirit, banishing _myself_ ,

and I gather up my crown, my cape and I reign, calling _my_ winds and leaves

 

because I know no other life.

 

* * *

 

 

III.

I am hawk. I am vole.

                I know glory, I know terror; I am

Reaper, sailing on the last breaths of souls and clouds, and

                I am the blood that feeds the prairie’s king, quailing! screaming! and

I oppose myself; I am full of terror and hard-hearted pride and

                I spill both red-taloned power and shivering tears on the grass.

 

Burning seraph-feathers, ozone-streaked, fling the dust of sovereignty;

                bloody diadem gilded with burning, breaking power and sun-lit, shining clouds!

But from my second place in the weeds, I see the terror

                that traces Gabriel’s halo, and this raptor cherubim is no holier than my murid body.

I see how exalted I am, how powerful I am, how divine I am,

                and I feel their fear-tipped hatred: and I understand my place in the grass, in the sky.

 

* * *

 

 

IV,

And then I am Loneliness; polymorphic, spectral.

 

I am the ghost of monk seals and passenger pigeons, alive not even in memories, now:

only in a handful of black-and-white photographs

or a body stitched and stuffed with cotton

or a jar reeking of formaldehyde.

 

I am apex predator, cord-muscled, sharp-eyed, black veins iced with enmity and serpent blood:

the snowy owl staring at a white world, endless, or maybe the

jaguar tucked in jungle leaves to escape the ceaseless rain

and no one trusts me and I trust no one.

 

The ocean washes on my shores and I am Island, and though I am finally at peace! this is what I _wanted_ :

and everything tumbles away from me into seafoam with the tides, sands drying up.

I may be a God, an entire land, but the monotheist is lonely, achingly so!

The waters are warm but hands, words, loves are warmer.

 

This is my world, my choices: my hand, cold Extinction.

 

* * *

 

 

V.

And I am human once more.

Two shaking hands, two failing legs;

                bright, bright eyes -- dark, dark heart.

 

I run up the shore: towards solid ground,

throwing myself away from the brutal waves.

 _What was I? What am I?_ The thoughts tear into

 

my heretic kimono, ripping into navy clouds,

and I let it tear; I want to be something new, something ancient

                that has empathy, that knows how to love and how to forgive.

 

This world is not mine and never was.

 

Elsewhere, I’m just starting to let you go

as I close my pouring mouth – putting away my heart –

                damming, _damning_ , the rivers of honeyed fire.

 

We die and are reborn: a new meaning,

a new life, as phoenix flames blaze blue in the forge,

                old copper alloyed with zinc into shining bronze.

 

I burn on the shores of Japan;

I burn bright on the hottest anvil imaginable,

                and I’m hoping, waiting, praying, to fill my hollow core.


End file.
